When Kool-Aid was the only other drink for kids, other than milk and sodas.
When boys couldn't wear anthing but leather shoes to school.
When it took 5 minutes for the TV to warm up.
When nearly everyone's parents smoked.
When boys went to the barber to get their hair cut.
When nearly everyone's mom was at home when the kids got there.
When nobody owned a purebred dog.
When a dime was a decent allowance and a quarter a huge bonus.
When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny.
When girls neither dated or kissed until high school.
When all your teachers wore either neckties or had their hair done everyday.
When you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped without asking... for free... every time.
When any parent could discipline any kid and nobody thought a thing about it.
When it was considered a great priviledge to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents.
When schools threateded to keep kids back a grade of they failed ... and actually did!
When a milkman delivered milk to your doorstep...and the breadman delivered bread and pies to your door.

All the girls had ugly gym uniforms.
Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box.
No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition.
Front doors were never locked.
Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger.

Remember prices....

A public telephone call from a phone booth cost 5 cents.
Coke Cola cost 5 cents in a bottle and if you returned the bottle, you received 2 cents.
A hamberger went for 25 cents with tomato, lettuce and a pickle. A cheeseburger sold for 35 cents.
A quart of milk was 19 or 20 cents.
A movie matinee was 2 full features, newsreel, previews, cartoons, shorts for about 25 cents.
To mail a letter cost 3 cents, airmail 6 cents
A newspaper cost 3 cents.
A pack of cigarettes ranged from 16 to 18 cents.
A cup of coffee was 10 cents.

Remember......

Little wax Coke-shaped bottles filled with colored sugar water.
Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles.
Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes.
Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum.
Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers and cream at the top.
Newsreels before the movie.
No intermissions at movie theaters so if you missed the beginning of the movie, you stayed in the theater until it repeated itself.
Telephone numbers with a word prefix. (Neptune 7-2288). Or dialing 8 and asking the Greenwich operator for the number.
Peashooters
Howdy Doody
45 rpm records
Green Stamps
Hi-Fi's
Metal ice cube trays with levers
Mimeograph paper
Beanie and Cecil
Drive-Ins
Studebakers, DeSotos, Hudson's, Nash's
Washtub wringers
The Fuller Brush Man
Tinkertoys
Erector Sets
Lincoln Logs
15 cent McDonald hamburgers
Penny candy

Remember a time when.....

Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-moe".
Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming "Do Over".
"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest.
The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "cooties".
A foot of snow was a dream come true.
"Oly-oly-oxen-free" made perfect sense.
Taking drugs meant orange flavored chewable aspirin.
Water balloons were the ultimate weapon.

We Survived.....

We survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing and didn't get tested for diabetes.
Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets.
As kids, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle.
We ate cupcakes, bread and butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it but we were not overweight because we were always outside playing.
We would leave home in the morning and play all day as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-Boxes, video games,  99 channels on television, video tape movies,
surround sound, cell phones, personal computers, Internet or Internet chat rooms... we had friends and we
went outside and found them.
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We ride bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell or just walked in and talked to them.
Little league had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.

Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach and we did not get food poisoning.
Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter and we used to eat it raw sometimes, too.
Our school sandwiches were wrapped in a brown paper bag, not in icepack coolers and nobody seems to get e.coli.
Flunking gym was not an option, even for stupid kids.
In school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem and stayed in detention after school.
The school nurse even had a white uniform with hat.
We played "king of the hill" on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it did not sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.

We had......

No Xerox, contact lenses, Frisbees, the pill.
No Credit cards, laser beams, ballpoint pens.
No pantyhose, air conditioners, dishwashers, clothes dryers.
No gay-rights, computer dating, dual careers, day-care centers, group therapy.
No fm radios, tape decks, cd's, electric typewriters, yogurt, guys wearing earings.
No Pizza Hut, McDonalds or BurgerKing.

Back then....

People got married THEN lived together.
We were taught to know the difference between right and wrong and to stand up and take responsibility for our actions.
Serving your country was a privilege; living in this country was a bigger privilege.
We thought fast food was what people ate during Lent.
Having a meaningful relationship meant getting along with your cousins.
Draft dodgers were people who closed their front doors when the evening breeze started.
Time-sharing meant time the family spent together in the evenings and weekends.
We listened to Big Bands, Jack Benny and the President's speeches on our radios.
If you saw anything with "Made in Japan" on it, it was junk.
The term "making out" referred to how you did on your school exam.
We had 5&10-cent stores where would actually buy things for 5 and 10 cents.
"Grass" was mowed, "coke" was a cold drink, "pot" was something your mother cooked in and "rock music" was your grandmother's lullaby.
"Aids" were helpers in the principal's office, "chip" meant a piece of wood, "hardware" was found in a hardware store and 'software" was not even a word.